DESCRIPTION: (Provided by the Applicant) The Center for Health Economic and Policy Studies (CHEPS) at the Medical University of South Carolina seeks funding to continue, and improve, the highly successful Annual Health Economics Conference (AHEC). Building on a successful 15-year experience with a unique small conference format for intense and rigorous development of research papers in health economics, the conference organizers and participants will focus on developing and disseminating research about "health care costs, organizations, quality and market forces," a focus clearly aligned with AHRQ's mission. In this context, the aims of the conference are: (1) to advance the policy applicability of health economics by exploring theoretical issues that can be directly applied to real-world health settings; (2) to improve the policy relevance of empirical health economics by fostering research that emphasizes study of important current questions using the most rigorous methods; and (3) to develop the next generation of health economic scholars by intentionally placing promising junior economists with high-profile senior economists in an intensive three-day, small group setting. Conference activities will also produce (1) research agenda driven by the contributions, critiques, and discussions of the papers presented, (2) a list of potential users of such findings and related expertise, and (3) pragmatic and innovative strategies that AHRQ, conference organizers, participating health economists, and potential partners might use in actively disseminating discussed research findings beyond the conference. This year the conference will be held March 24-26 in the new, state-of-the-art College of Health Professions building on the campus of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC.